Scott Parkin again

All the way back in 2005 I wrote a couple of posts (here’s one and here’s the other) about Scott Parkin, a nonviolent activist deported from Australia for allegedly being a threat to Australia’s security. It’s one of the most blatant abuses of power our country has seen in recent years (leaving him dubbed Australia’s first political prisoner). There’s a new video out that tells the story – I highly recommend you take the 15 minutes to hear what happened, and begin to question your assumptions about the just, free society we’re supposed to be a part of. Visit here for more information.

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scott parkin 2

ok, so now they’ve revealed why they’re deporting him: apparently, he encouraged ‘spirited’ protest and was intending to teach ‘techniques for preventing police from taking protesters away for arrest’. In the context of someone committed to non-violence, we can safely assume those techniques were non-violent, so I still fail to get what he has done that is illegal, or even close to a ‘threat to national security’. how dare he encourage spirited protest? only boring, unenthusiastic protest is allowed here, otherwise you might actually have some kind of effect. seriously, surely protest, even resistance, is still a legal right in this country? just because you disagree with the government and make efforts to express that disagreement, seems now to mean you forfeit all rights to being here. that’s not just wrong, it’s downright disturbing. unless there’s something they’re not telling us about this story – and there seems to be no reason not to defend this decision – there’s every reason to be not just alert, but very, very alarmed.

scott parkin

what is our country coming to? I guess we always knew it would happen, but really…this is incredibly depressing.

the short story is that scott parkin, a non-violent peace activist, has been detained and is awaiting deportation due to what the government has called an ‘adverse security assessment’. they refuse to give any more detail than that. scott was here to travel and while here linked up with greenpeace and then was asked to help out with some non-violent activist training with Pt’chang. now I’m not going to enter into any conspiracy theories about scott’s enemies at halliburton putting political pressure on the australian government, but the injustice of his detention alone is apalling. Iain Murray, the guy who had him out here and who was with him when he was arrested is one of the facilitators of Pt’chang, the group I did the non-violent activist training with a few months back. He led the training day, and he’s the one who’s been interviewed in all the papers. I have no doubt that they are 110% committed to non-violence, and Scott therefore poses no threat to Australia at all. It’s just staggering that this can even be allowed to happen.

any sort of resistance to this government is crushed with brutal and increasingly fearless impunity, and no-one seems to be willing or able to hold the government to account for it. we are becoming a dictatorship and the majority don’t notice, or don’t care. is this what we are coming to?